This author and her long titles are taking up an awful amount of space on this blog. I have not finished the Cotswolds series yet so why am I trying this? To see what Rebecca can do with a different heroine. [Read more…]

Dick Young is staying at his friend Professor Magnus Lane’s house on the Cornish coast whilst he is in London, and is encouraged by him to try an experimental drug he is working on. The drug sends Dick back to the 14th century to experience life and intrigue in the local landowning families through the steward Roger Gylmirth. [Read more…]

Overall I enjoyed this book, but felt that there were places where it needed speeding up a bit. There is a mixed bag of potential murderers to choose from, and there are plenty of twists and turns, so you don’t really know anything until all is revealed at the end. [Read more…]

If you like British village cozy mysteries, try Rebecca Tope. This is light reading for when you want to relax on holiday. A widowed woman in her forties, lonely and self-pitying, takes up house sitting provided she doesn’t have to go very far. Thea’s brought her own spaniel to add to the pair of Labradors in residence.

Jane is a new librarian in the sleepy town of Donnerville, a place where little happens. One day while working, Jane finds an envelope on her desk containing $50 and a note that reads “Look Homeward, Angel”. Directing Jane to a Thomas Wolfe novel of that name, she opens the book to find another envelope containing a $100 bill. The note is signed by a person only known as “The Master of Games”.

I know they say if you can’t say anything positive don’t bother, but….

Just checked my compass and I think I’m about 52% through this climb so you would think by now it would have sucked me in. People say they can’t put it down but I find myself reading 1 chapter and then sucking out a breath of boredom. This is what annoys me about this book:

Back in 2008 KP produced another cracking book filled with all the drivel we’ve come to love and expect. Written in a first-person stream of consciousness style and filled with hilarious digressions and misguided observations, Karlology’s chapters each focus on a single trip by Karl to an exhibition or museum.

In Karl’s never-ending quest for knowledge, each visit is an opportunity to explore a different area of academic interest, from science, to art to the human body. Each chapter recounts, first person, Karl’s confused, bemused and distracted response to the facts he is presented with. Things that to any normal person would seem mundane or ordinary suddenly take on a new perspective – and hilarity ensues. In this book Karl goes for a MENSA test, goes to an exhibition of the human body featuring real life (dead) human bodies.

And we get the confrontation we’ve all been waiting for – Karl meets his brain. And of course, there’s also some monkey news thrown in. If you’ve been following Karl through all the media over the years (XFM, podcasts, audiobooks, An Idiot Abroad and The Moaning of Life documentaries) some of the stuff in here are things he’s already mentioned. But in this format he’s allowed to elaborate on his thoughts and also poses some new ones too. His drawings are always charming and the design of this book is really top-notch. Suzanne even throws in a touching afterword. “He makes me laugh every day” she says. Long live Karl!

This is the kind of book one can pick up during any decade and the story would still feel timeless. It’s a very literary horror novel, different from the usual genre’s reliance on the squeamish, opting for a more psychological approach to frighten the reader. It’s the story of four elderly men who meet each week to tell each other stories – and are all hiding a deep dark secret. [Read more…]

Carcharodon carcharias. What a great name! What a terrible beauty God gave to this creature. No other being on the planet glides with the symmetry of the shark. Great White variety or otherwise. The nine months it took to shoot this documentary was ground breaking back in 1969-70. What an experience it must have been to see this unique documentary on the big screen. If you are a shark fan you must buy this DVD. [Read more…]

This cult favourite of many has gathered dust for the last forty years, a victim of the public taste away from clever and sophisticated to action and adventure. It is a film about film people, assembling to make a film that we discover is the film we are watching! [Read more…]